"Never use world stride again"

World stride forgot to get a bus on Wednesday, March 27, 2024. We all had to drive to New Orleans and park cars for a week at the airport. Checks for partial reimbursement were dated three months later on June 25, 2024. My expense for 260 miles round trip at IRS rate for 2024 was $174.20. My parking expense was $110.00 Total expense was $284.20. Two checks for "reimbursement" totaled $188.00. I am out of $ 96.00. I do not care how the person-student-school-travel agency fog machine is arranged and used. I will never have anything to do with world stride again. Except to warn everyone else about it.

"A few significant Issues"

The process to get this trip started was fine, and most of the aspects were normal, however, there were a few significant issues.

1. Accommodations in our London trip were 5 minutes from the airport and and hour and a half from every significant sight-seeing location we were promised to visit. The promise of "hotels in the heart of the city" was not kept. The hotel in Paris was marginally better. I would expect WorldStrides to manage their reservations better. In all honesty, it seemed like everything was booked so late that to keep within your profit margin we were cut short a good hotel. Because of this, most of our London tour destinations were extremely rushed or skipped entirely. And on the only day we got a coach, we spent the whole time in the bus and did not have time to get out and see any location AT ALL. Completely disappointing.

2. Additionally, due to issues with scheduling the buses we were frequently left to use public transport as our primary mode of transportation. For a large group of people, flooding the public transportation services with foreigners was a nightmare the first few days. There was a strange rule regarding busing hours, which normally would make sense, but there was no clear work around to accommodate the actual hours we had to visit places. It was poorly planned, or at least poorly communicated to the coaching company, and when there were issues there was no representative to solve the issues. I personally was verbally accosted and yelled at by the bus driver because he was upset by our schedule that WorldStrides had developed. HE was a nightmare and there seemed to be no effort to resolve this by the WorldStrides company. I would suspect a reputable company such as WorldStrides might have the connections available to resolve scheduling conflicts with coaching companies.

3. At no point were we asked if there was a preference for location flight departure for the trip. We were forced to fly out of El Paso, a 4 hour trip away, rather than Lubbock, an hour and a half away. This was strange to us as a whole other group close by was able to fly out of Lubbock. Again, it felt like the booking of the details had been put off so long that the company was forced to give us less than ideal flights. It was apparent that flights were booked late because we did not receive ticket details until two weeks before we were to depart.

4. In addition to all of these issues, as a the program director of my group, I often had to face the complaints and dissatisfaction of my parents who felt they were promised a different kind of experience and when I went to communicate these issues, I found that our representative that we had been working with had quit the day before our trip started. As if she had know there would be issues and did not want to deal with them. Our tour guides did their best to mitigate the many issues that they were thrust upon, but the booking issues were not their fault.

5. When I booked I had a family with a smaller child who could not stay by herself. I made this very clear to our representative. However, at each hotel we arrived in, the accommodation was not considered and they were given limited and unsatisfactory options.

I will heavily advise against using this company in the future. It was extremely disappointing to have to have had a great experience in the past as a student and then face so many issues that were very clearly a lack of planning. Unfortunately, I am doubtful there is some way to refund money or provide any sort of compensation for the disappointing experience.

"Everything about the experience was wonderful."

Everything about the experience was wonderful aside from one factor. My only negative comment was about food. Every night we ate at various hotel restaurants and I feel as though I may not have experienced the true culture in a culinary sense. However overall, the food was decent and the rest of the trip amazing. We felt safe with our guides the whole time, the itinerary consumed our day but it was reasonable and we didn't feel burnt out, and what we did get to experience were things so unique that an average tourist may not have had the opportunity to have our unique experiences if they didn't know were to look or who to talk to. I believe this trip was life changing.

"Great experience!"

There was a delay in flights because of weather. The WorldStrides team along with the school helped to make sure that the kids still had a memorable experience. Swimming with dolphins, hotel and shuttle accommodations were a highlight for my child.

"Amazing tour guide"

Amazing tour guide! Michael is the goat!

"The worst travel experience I have ever…"

The worst travel experience I have ever had by far. Inexperienced people, unwilling to help and a money grab to say the least. Never again.

"Baldwin Wallace Basketball"

Morgan O’Donnell was helpful, patient and professional. Michael Wighton exceptional and bus driver Peter was terrific.

"Our tour guide"

Our tour guide, Michael, was amazing and made our trip amazing. He was awesome!

"Great experience that could have been better"

Tour guide was awesome! Sites visited were great! Schedule was quite busy and would have appreciated some down/free time mixed in each day. Would have been much better if our flights had assigned seats that allowed our group to sit together instead of getting all of the last picked seats which scattered young teens throughout the cabin.

"Lots to see in Scotland…"

Enjoyed seeing the beautiful countryside of Scotland as well as going inside the churches and castles. Enjoyed walking around the towns and cities with the wonderful people I met. Enjoyed the beautiful flowers in front of the houses as well as hearing about the history.